Humans focus on friction

In the 25 years since the millennium, Tom Gill writes in January 2026, technology has changed how we live in profound ways. Americans check their phone on average 186 times a day, and usually first thing in the morning and last thing at night. People turn to AI chatbots for advice or comfort instead of friends. 

We use technology to “optimise” our time, remove inefficiencies and smooth over social friction, but choosing social friction over efficiency feels curative. We don't want to lose a fundamental part of what it is to be human: the messy, unexpected nature of life. Here are a few ways to "re-humanise" your life:

AVOID THE TECH SHORTCUT

Self-checkouts, QR codes, video calls and chatbots are designed to save time and reduce friction. But choosing to speak to strangers helps us break out our social bubbles and reminds us of the people who exist around us. Many technological tools – like self-checkouts – were introduced by companies to save on labour costs, but a positive, friendly human exchange is not an inefficiency to be eliminated, it’s part of the joy of being human.

“Human beings thrive on interpersonal interaction and suffer without it,” Prof Hugh Mackay, a social psychologist and researcher, says. “Neuroscientists tell us eye contact is like the super highway to emotions. You can’t get that through a screen.”

LEAVE THE HEADPHONES

While headphones offer comfort and distraction, they signal we are closed off to others, reducing opportunities for casual interactions and new connections, however fleeting. We don't just block other people out. Dr Jim Taylor, a psychologist and the author of Raising Generation Tech, says we often use headphones to distract ourselves from our own thoughts too. 

“You’re caught in a netherworld where you’re both not inside your head and you’re not engaging with the world – and those are the two things that make us human: our ability to think and our ability to feel,” he says.

Taking out your headphones, even occasionally, allows space for reflection, observation and connection. It opens the possibility of overhearing a conversation you relate to, listening to the sounds of nature or simply letting your mind wander. “It’s amazing what will happen when you’re open to the world – or open to yourself,” says Taylor. “But it’s difficult to do when you’re listening to a podcast.”

READ (AND SHARE) THE POEM

William Sieghart, founder of Poetry Pharmacy, prescribes poems to people for their emotional ailments. He noticed more and more people are arriving feeling anxious and overstimulated, which he puts in large part down to phones keeping us in a state of constant alert. 

“Lots of people tell me that they wake up in the morning and they’re kind of in fight or flight before they open their eyes,” he says. In a world of distraction, reading a poem aloud – or to someone else – can create space for emotional honesty. “People have written about every human experience,” says Sieghart. “[A poem] will make you realise you’re not alone, you’re not mad. Even if the poem was written hundreds of years ago.”

HANDWRITE THE NOTE

Communication is easier than ever before; but while we are communicating with more frequency, it is often with less depth. Birthdays are a good example: a text message is easy; a card takes effort. Using AI to write a card may save time, but it also defeats the point. 

The value lies in the thinking, remembering and choosing of words, as well as the final message. Avoiding these rituals, and exercising the neural pathways they use, may make expressing emotions more difficult further down the line. And you don't need a birthday; a heartening handwritten note for someone you live with has much more impact than sending a text, revealing traces of personality in the loops and lines of your handwriting.

REMEMBER THE MOMENT

A gen Z podcast host recently (and somewhat ironically) went viral for a sobering reflection: 

“I heard that our generation will be the first to die with more memories of other people’s lives than our own lives because of social media.”

Cutting down on social media, news and media consumption is an obvious solution for cutting down on information overload and flooding our memories.

Another suggestion is to take less photos. This doesn't mean never taking photos, but being more intentional about which experiences we want to remember, and which experiences need the full Facebook album circa 2009 of "that one night out". (Showing my age/scene.)

Sometimes, the best way to remember something is simply to take in the moment, while you're in it.

12 minutes away from the doomscroll

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I find just taking a few minutes daily to meditate, listen to guided meditations or affirmations, breaks the "infinite scroll" and quietens my mind, especially at night when I'm awake thinking about everything and therefore prone to check my phone for "that one thing" (cue: 1am and I'm watching alarming rantss about the latest crisis on the news. Not ideal for mental health or sleep.)

Binaural Technologies makes a range of audio products designed to improve brain health and cognitive performance. Useful for executive dysfunction, for stress, and for a preoccupied mind buzzing from your latest doomscroll.

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Writers focus on the "age of engagement"

In The Long Game, a Big Think column focused on philosophy and long-term thinking, Eric Markowitz talks to David Perell about how writing has changed and what it takes to stand out now. 

My favourite snippets:

David Perell makes the internet feel small in the best possible sense. A gifted writer and even better connector, he’s built a career on publishing great ideas and knowing how to share them in a way that actually lands. Perell doesn’t chase the typical metrics. He’s not interested in how often you post or how many followers you have. What he really cares about is engagement. Real connection. Resonance. That’s the thing, he argues, that compounds over time.

Eric Markowitz: You’ve said we’ve shifted from an “age of distribution” to an “age of engagement.” What does that mean?

David Perell: The age of distribution was about getting your work seen. You’d post on social, drive people to a newsletter. Audience growth was slow but sticky. Consistency was everything. Publish three times a week, grow your list, build over time.

But now? We’re in the age of engagement. If you publish something that pops, it doesn’t matter if you have 100 or 100,000 followers. The algorithm will push it. Even tiny accounts can get millions of impressions because reach is decreasingly about how many followers you have and increasingly about how much people are engaging with what you’ve shared.

Eric Markowitz: So you optimize for spikes, not consistency?

David Perell: If you want to reach top people, it’s all about quality. One of my favorite examples is Leopold Aschenbrenner. He was relatively unknown in the public space, then he wrote an [extended] essay on AI and “situational awareness.” Within 24 hours, every major thinker in Silicon Valley was talking about it. One great piece is all it takes. That’s the age of engagement.

Eric Markowitz: What made you interested in writing?

David Perell: It’s how I started understanding the world — and how the world started understanding me. Back in college, I had no clear career path. But I started noticing that people who were writing online, especially on Twitter, were getting all these incredible opportunities. They were meeting interesting people, building communities. So I jumped in.

At first, I was just trying to publish and see what would happen. But quickly, writing turned into a way to clarify my own thinking, and more importantly, to transmit ideas.

I started calling it a “serendipity vehicle.” 

You put out a signal, and it’s as if thousands of little minions, who work 24/7, carry your ideas to people who think like you and are interested in the same things you are. It’s this powerful matching engine.

Eric Markowitz: You’ve describe writing as a way to build a network. That’s an under-appreciated idea.

David Perell: Totally. I read something that stuck with me: as we grow older, it gets harder to meet people who truly resonate with us. That’s just how life works — unless you’re publishing ideas.

The people who put their stories and expertise out there unlock an entirely different game. What you’re really doing is tapping a tuning fork. You send out a narrow frequency, and the internet delivers it to the people most likely to resonate. People decry social media algorithms, but the internet’s ability to match people is one of the modern world’s greatest gifts.

Eric Markowitz: For most of history, the hard parts of writing were creation and distribution. But now, with AI, creation is easier than ever.

David Perell: AI… won’t give you great ideas. You still have to bring the originality, the lived experience. But it’s an incredible tool to help refine, poke holes, and reframe. I use it to stress-test my thinking, generate analogies, or even rewrite something in the style of a comedian like Theo Von — just to see it differently.

Still, the real power comes from the person. You need:

1. some baseline writing ability (which AI can now help with)

2. original thoughts or stories

3. the courage to put it out there. (That last one is still the biggest hurdle for people.)

Eric Markowitz: You talk about separating signal from noise. How do you create writing that actually resonates?

David Perell: I always return to two things: personality and perspective. Do you sound like a real person? Are you sharing something that isn’t just consensus? One interesting trick: If ChatGPT agrees with you, your take is already mainstream. But if it resists — if it won’t validate your idea — that could be a sign you’re onto something original. The real signal is often what AI doesn’t recognize as obvious.

Eric Markowitz: I think more and more companies are realizing they need to act like media companies.

David Perell: I think more and more companies are realizing they need to fill the vacuum left by legacy media. Meanwhile, individuals and companies are building in-house content machines. They’re telling their stories directly—and often more compellingly—than the legacy press ever did.

Look at the last few election cycles. Politicians who embrace podcasts and long-form interviews are building real trust. It reminds me of FDR’s fireside chats — intimate, unfiltered, human. People have learned to see through teleprompter speeches. They want to see “the real you.” The less polished version that only your friends used to see… Polish isn’t persuasive anymore. The best creators admit mistakes. They let people in. This is one reason why big brand campaigns don’t work like they used to.

“With so much synthetic content out there, real human communication will be what helps your organization win.”

Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Inc & author of DataStory: Explain Data

Brands focus on ‘intentional content consumption’

The infinite scroll can be stopped, after all. And 2025 was the year we shifted to Substack essays, TikTok "personal curriculums" and fiction books (and series) are selling more - largely due to Gen Z, the younger generation growing up.

The New York Times launched its “anti-brain-rot” campaign championing active absorption as we shifted away from mindless doomscrolling and towards content that adds more pawsitive value to our lives.

For creators online, each piece of content matters. Audiences are more selective about where their attention goes, and more aware of what doomscrolling does to our mental health (and what to do about it). Audiences are no longer satisfied with surface-level hooks that win attention in seconds, for a short-form video (3 minutes or under). Audiences want creators and brands that inspire, teach, or add meaning.

Goat Agency sees 3 big opportunities for brands:

1. Prioritise creators who bring depth.

The creators gaining traction today aren’t just trend followers – they’re educators, storytellers, and community builders. Partnering with creators who leave their audience smarter, more uplifted, or more connected will set your brand apart.

2. Rethink content KPIs.

Success is no longer about quick impressions. Longer watch times, saves, and shares are stronger signals of meaningful engagement. In many cases, a smaller but more loyal audience will drive more impact than chasing vanity metrics.

3. Lead with cultural intelligence. 

Audiences are increasingly protective of their attention. As Taylor Swift recently went viral on the New Heights podcast saying, “treat your energy like it’s a luxury item that not everyone can afford.” People are thinking about their time online the same way. Brands need to deliver value and make every second of content feel worth the watch, as if viewers have invested in a VIP pass.

Books to understand each other

Online polarisation, bias, misinformation and divisiveness are becoming the defining features of our digital age, especially through anonymous social media interactions - or real conversations that become increasingly fraught. MIT Press has a collection of books designed to provide context to our current times and provide tools for respectful, productive communication, even across ideological differences - especially across ideological differences, because good-faith conversation is more necessary than ever to reach understanding in controversial issues.

Here is the list and MIT Press summaries of the books:

The Cost of Conviction: How Our Deepest Values Lead Us Astray by Steven Sloman

When you are faced with a decision, do you consider the best outcome, or do you consider your deepest values about which actions are appropriate? The Cost of Conviction contrasts these two primary strategies for making decisions: consequentialism or prioritizing one’s sacred values. Steven Sloman argues that, while both modes of decision making are necessary tools for a good decision maker, people err by deploying sacred values more often than they should, especially when it comes to sociopolitical issues. As a result, we oversimplify, grow disgusted and angry, and act in ways that contribute to social polarization. In this book, Sloman provides a new understanding of today’s societal ills and grounds that understanding in science.

The Bias That Divides Us: The Science and Politics of Myside Thinking by Keith E. Stanovich

In The Bias That Divides Us, psychologist Keith Stanovich argues provocatively that we don’t live in a post-truth society, as has been claimed, but rather a myside society. Our problem is not that we are unable to value and respect truth and facts, but that we are unable to agree on commonly accepted truth and facts. We believe that our side knows the truth. Post-truth? That describes the other side. The inevitable result is political polarization. Stanovich shows what science can tell us about myside bias: how common it is, how to avoid it, and what purposes it serves.

Undue Hate: A Behavioral Economic Analysis of Hostile Polarization in US Politics and Beyond by Daniel F. Stone

It’s well known that the political divide in the United States—particularly between Democrats and Republicans—has grown to alarming levels in recent decades. Affective polarization—emotional polarization, or the hostility between the parties—has reached an unprecedented fever pitch. In Undue Hate, Daniel F. Stone tackles the biases undergirding affective polarization head-on. Stone explains why we often develop objectively false, and overly negative, beliefs about the other side—causing us to dislike them more than we should.

The Divide: How Fanatical Certitude Is Destroying Democracy by Taylor Dotson

In The Divide, Taylor Dotson argues provocatively that what drives political polarization is not our disregard for facts in a post-truth era, but rather our obsession with truth. The idea that some undeniable truth will make politics unnecessary, Dotson says, is damaging democracy. We think that appealing to facts, or common sense, or nature, or the market will resolve political disputes. We view our opponents as ignorant, corrupt, or brainwashed. Dotson argues that we don’t need to agree with everyone, or force everyone to agree with us; we just need to be civil enough to practice effective politics.

How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason by Lee McIntyre

“Climate change is a hoax—and so is coronavirus.” “Vaccines are bad for you.” These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed—they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don’t believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it’s important to do so. Science denial can kill.

MIT Press books are forward-thinking, favoring work that either advances knowledge or offers a useful synthesis across disciplines and international borders, reflecting the collaboration that is needed to address complex problems and topics. To learn more… read the MIT Press Impact Report.